Alcatel hopes to break away from its tradition of budget handsets with the flagship One Touch Scribe Easy and One Touch Scribe HD.

The new Scribe range mimics Samsung's Note handsets with big 5-inch screens and a removable pen with which you can write on the screen. Of the two, the One Touch Scribe Easy is the entry level phone in the range. 

The Scribe Easy comes with a 5-inch WVGA display, a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and what Alcatel is calling HD sound, which we presume means a good set of smartphone speakers.  

The phone's large 5-inch screen is coated with an oil and fingerprint-proof glass and is protected by a MagicFlip magnetic cover, which will lock and unlock the phone just as a smart cover would on the iPad. 

On the photography front, the rear camera has 5-megapixels and can record in 720p. The front-facing camera is VGA.

Alcatel has created some bespoke apps for the Scribe range in order to bolster their writing functions. So both phones will ship with Scribe note (for note taking) and a movie-maker app.

The Scribe HD steps up the game a little, adding a 720p resolution IPS 5-inch screen as well as a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor. The phone features an 8-megapixel rear-mounted camera, capable of Full HD video recording, and a 720p front-facing snapper. 

All the apps and included pen and MagicFlip cover are also there. Strangely, the One Touch Scribe Easy ships with Android 4.1, whereas the Scribe HD comes with Android 4.2. Both will ship in dual-SIM variants and both have a 2500 mAh battery. Memory is covered by a microSD slot, but internal storage is only 2GB. 

Alcatel is offering both handsets in a range of colours. The Scribe Easy will launch in red, blue and yellow; the Scribe HD n black, iwhite, red and yellow.

We don't have a release date or pricing just yet, but have contacted Alcatel for details.